Walk, and I Will Follow
by Hippothoe
Summary: Gannicus and Sibyl walk on, leaving Rome behind them.


Disclaimer: I don't own Spartacus. I just happen to find Gannicus and Sibyl to be painfully wonderful as a couple.

This is just a bit of whimsy I thought up when I really should have been sleeping. Excuse the sappiness; I really want these two to end up together.

They walk endlessly. The flat plains and sheer cliffs of Sinuessa give way to harsh, rocky ground, the smell of the sea replaced by pine and frost. Sibyl's feet and fingers freeze as they walk, but Spartacus does not let them stop.

_Not long. Keep going. _

_Move! _

She tugs her furs closer around her shoulders, and moves, head tucked away from the cold. The mountains rise up in the distance like a line of jagged teeth, their tops hidden in cloud. Sibyl watches them and gapes, amazed at the sight. The most she has ever seen is the ocean from the villa's doors; the sight of ships sliding across the water, their sails billowing. Sunlight glancing off the water.

Sibyl closes her eyes, imagines the sight and scent of the salty sea, the heat of the sun. She plods through snow and ice and it does not work. The touch of her breath, warmed by her body, on her fingertips is like the touch of a knife; it slices across the flesh. Sibyl gasps and grimaces, quiet.

She keeps walking. Huddled figures in black clothes tread the path that leads them through the trees. Carts and animals follow, stinking of heat and sweat. The sour funk of unwashed animal pervades the thin air; the weak whimpers of children follow it.

Sibyl moves. It is not enough to move her body, lift her legs and her feet, make them go forward. She has to concentrate on what lies ahead – what lies behind threatens like a hanging sword, ready to fall and kill, decimate her. It threatens to make her scream, the sound clawing its way out of her throat, rising up like foul vapours from the earth. Sibyl bites the dry flesh of her mouth and dry until it bleeds, but the anxiety does not leave. It worries and gnaws and teeths at her, grinding the bone.

_Oh please…oh no…please._

Heavy footfalls fall into step with her. Sibyl looks up, pushes the fringe out of her face.

Silence aside from breathing. No words.

"I had not thought to find you among us," Sibyl says, the voice thin.

Gannicus stares down, looks at her bloodless hands. He does not touch her; Sibyl has grown too accustomed to distance between them to miss the contact.

Sibyl speaks before he can reply. "I would have thought you with the others, at Rome. Gone to wrest glory from the Republic's grasp," Sibyl continues. She quickens her pace; he matches it.

"I am not one to fight and die for hopeless cause," Gannicus answers, and the grin that follows on the heels of those words is hollow. Sibyl looks away.

"Yet you remained with Spartacus despite ample opportunity to leave," Sibyl says, blowing on the blue fingernails, ignoring the lancing pain, rubbing warmth and feeling into the dead flesh. "You say you have no gods, but you must believe in something."

"Only in the sharp edge of a blade," he answers, watching her knead life into her hands. His face is drawn from the cold, the golden skin and hair drained dark with lack of health. The lips are cracked from the harsh air and snow, the skin on his cheeks peeling. Alarmed, Sibyl sees the dark blue hue in the beds of his nails; he is dying, slowly, they all are, but he smiles and watches her to distract her from it.

_Oh, Gannicus. _

"Your hands," she says, reaching out and taking them. "There is no blood in them." She stops, breath rasping like gravel in her lungs, and holds them. She rubs them between hers, stripping away the furs to the wrists, pressing hard, painful blood life into the unfeeling fingers.

He laughs. "Your fingers are cold as ice," Gannicus murmurs as she frowns and rubs harder. She draws close and moves into his embrace, quickly, so he is caught unaware; he almost pulls away, Sibyl knows, spouting meaningless words about men like him and young girls like her but she stops them before they spill out and just moves close. Their hands are pressed between them; the warmth from their bodies is weak, fleeting, then grows stronger as their breath mixes, pale arcs of crystalline air expelled from their mouths, and the blood rushes under their skin.

"I have told you-,"

"Shh," Sibyl begs. "Please. Not now."

"You are foolish, Sibyl,"" he admonishes quietly, but it is indulgent, the words possessive and proud, as accommodating as the solid body that flexes toward her and holds her against itself. The rest of them – the slaves, Spartacus, the whole rebellion – moves along like a running river splitting around a rock, and they stand.

"Then let me revel in it for what little time I have left," she says, hearing him bristle.

"Do not speak such words," Gannicus says, "lest you tempt fate."

"I though you did not believe in the gods?" Sibyl prods, a smile in her voice.

"I do not pretend to," Gannicus replies, "but it is best to insure against remote possibility."

Sibyl laughs, sorely, the thin dry lips breaking and bleeding, and then grows serious.

"Why do you come, Gannicus?" Sibyl asks. "Why abandon brothers to fight Rome and come on fool's journey?"

He pauses, thinks. Sibyl waits.

"I often think of better times than these when I imagine the end of my days," he says at last. "Fields and sunlight, far away from the empire. It is foolish dream, but one I share."

"You wish for freedom?"

"Only from watching men die," Gannicus answers honestly. "I will never stand as free. A life too long in the arena, and even freedom loses meaning."

Sibyl is quiet. "They should pay for what they have taken from you."

Gannicus says nothing.

"I want water, and sunshine," Sibyl says to fill the sience, "and to walk freely where I wish." She looks up at him, watches the tawny eyes flicker and widen as they appraise her. "You have given me a gift I can never repay. I stand in your debt."

"Consider it repaid," Gannicus replies. "Live your life as you wish it, wherever you wish. Find love, have children. You have full years ahead."

"I would live them beside you," she whispers, praying he does not hear. But he does.

"I have nothing to give," Gannicus says.

"You have already given everything," Sibyl says, smiling past the pain, and steps away. The void between their body resonates heat, the cold stripped away.

"Let us go from here," she says. Gannicus' hand, warm and large, holds her own, and she pulls him away down the path. "Let us put Rome behind us forever," Sibyl pleads.

"I follow where you lead," Gannicus says, and grins at her, following.


End file.
